Once, when they were coming home from a play, she called attention to some feature of it.

It was the first independent remark she had made since he had brought her to her lodgings.

In itself it was of no importance at all, but he was overcome with delight, as people are delighted with the first words that show returning interest in earthly matters on the part of a convalescing friend whose soul has long been hovering on the borders of death.

It would sound laughable to explain how much he made of that little remark, how he spun it out, and turned it in and out, and returned to it for days afterward.

But it remained isolated.